(Clearwisdom.net) The U.S. Department of State released the seventh Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, which examines the status of religious freedom around the world. The report is released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on November 8.
The annual report to Congress is mandated by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 and seeks to examine barriers to religious freedom in 197 countries and territories.
China and two other Asian communist states, North Korea and Vietnam, were designated among others as "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPC) for severe violations of religious freedom. The same countries were listed as CPCs in the 2004 report.
According to the 2005 report, the Chinese Communist Government's respect for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience remained poor, for many unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements such as the Falun Gong. Communist Party officials restated that party membership and religious belief were incompatible. For example, authorities have required clergy to publicly endorse government policies or denounce Falun Gong. Party and PLA military personnel have been expelled for adhering to the Falun Gong spiritual movement.
The Government continued to seek to manage religious affairs by restricting religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of activities of religious groups to prevent the rise of possible competing sources of authority outside the control of the government. Unregistered religious groups continued to experience varying degrees of official interference and harassment. Members of some unregistered groups were subjected to restrictions, including intimidation, harassment, and detention.
The report states, in some areas, security officials used threats, demolition of unregistered property, extortion, interrogation, detention, and at times beatings and torture to harass leaders of unauthorized groups and their followers. The arrest, detention, and imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners continued, and there have been credible reports of deaths due to torture and abuse. Practitioners who refuse to recant their beliefs are sometimes subjected to harsh treatment in prisons, reeducation-through-labor camps, and extra-judicial "legal education" centers.
According to the report, there were continuing revelations about the extra-legal activities of the Government's 610 office, implicated in most alleged abuses of Falun Gong practitioners.
The report states, during the period covered by this report, government repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement continued. At the National People's Congress session in March 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao's Government Work Report emphasized that the Government would "expand and deepen its battle against [CCP's slanderous term deleted]," including Falun Gong. There were credible reports of torture and deaths in custody of Falun Gong practitioners.
"According to Falun Gong practitioners in the United States, since 1999 more than 100,000 practitioners have been detained for engaging in Falun Gong practices, admitting that they adhere to the teachings of Falun Gong, or refusing to criticize the organization or its founder. The organization reports that its members have been subject to excessive force, abuse, detention, and torture, and that some of its members, including children, have died in custody. For example, in 2003, Falun Gong practitioner Liu Chengjun died after reportedly being abused in custody in Jilin Province. Some foreign observers estimate that at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in the country's reeducation-through-labor camps are Falun Gong adherents. Falun Gong places the number even higher. Hundreds of Falun Gong adherents were also incarcerated in legal education centers, a form of administrative detention, upon completion of their reeducation-through-labor sentences," says the report.
"According to the Falun Gong, hundreds of its practitioners have been confined to psychiatric institutions and forced to take medications or undergo electric shock treatment against their will", the report continued.
The report also mentioned a Beijing attorney's open letter in December 2004 to the National People's Congress highlighting legal abuses in cases involving Falun Gong. The letter focused on the April 2004 detention and subsequent administrative sentencing of Huang Wei of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. It described how Falun Gong cases are handled outside normal legal procedures by a special Ministry of Justice office, known as the 610 office. The letter alleged that mistreatment is typical of the ongoing campaign against Falun Gong. After the open letter was published, Huang's wife disappeared, and her whereabouts remain unknown. The asylum request of a Chinese diplomat and other former government officials allegedly involved in the Government's campaign against Falun Gong overseas brought additional scrutiny and negative attention to the extra-legal activities of the 610 Office, including allegations that it sought out Falun Gong practitioners abroad and forcibly returned them to the country.
Since 1999, the Secretary of State has designated China as a "Country of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
The report concludes with an overview of U.S. efforts to promote and support international religious freedom through public advocacy and support of active monitoring of religious freedom conditions.
"The pursuit of religious liberty supports other freedoms, including speech, assembly, and conscience," according to the report. "When the cause of religious freedom is furthered, so is the pursuit of democracy."
Full text of the 2005 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom can be found at: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51509.htm
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